For voters in this purple part of Wisconsin, the impeachment fight is a symbol of broken politics

RICHLAND CENTER - Larry Rudersdorf was visiting his brother-in-law’s chainsaw repair shop after watching part of the Trump impeachment hearings on TV.

His takeaway?

“Two opposite sides going at it, seeing things exactly the opposite way,” said Rudersdorf, who marveled at how Republicans and Democrats in Congress could draw such vastly different conclusions from the same testimony.

Of course, the same could be said of his fellow voters, whose views of impeachment are tied remarkably closely to their views of President Donald Trump.

If these voters share one thing across the political divide, it’s a broad sense of dismay over the impeachment saga.

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But in recent interviews in this very purple part of Wisconsin, they expressed that frustration in very different ways.

Those opposed to Trump are dismayed because they believe the president’s supporters are impervious to negative information and evidence of wrongdoing.

“These people that are testifying (before Congress) — it doesn’t seem like they’re changing very many ‘Trumper’ minds. What does that tell you? What does that say? We’re letting go of our democracy,” Pam Taliaferro said.

Those who support Trump are dismayed because they think Democrats are on a mission to destroy his presidency regardless of the facts or circumstances.

“They tried to blame Trump for collusion. That fell apart. They tried to blame him for obstruction and that fell apart. From day one, they didn’t want him in office,” said Derek Williams. “I hope that (impeachment) flops and that they don’t try to do this again. &mldr; Republicans as well, if a Democrat gets in. &mldr; Accept the (election) loss and do it with pride.”

For voters on both sides, the impeachment fight is kind of an all-purpose symbol of broken politics, whether it’s the polarization of the electorate, the partisanship of the political class or the legislative impasse in Congress.

Trump supporters and critics alike compare the quarreling politicians they see on TV to bickering children. One voter here who declined to offer her name said she “might as well be watching Judge Judy.”

“I get very irritated with both sides. There seems to be a lot of name-calling and a lot of finger-pointing. I just for once wish they could get down to the nitty-gritty of things and stick to the facts (without) all the hoopla and the ‘he said’ and ‘she said,’ blah, blah, blah,” said Sheila Melby, who was interviewed at a coffee klatch at American Legion Post 13 in Richland Center.

Wisconsin's bellwether

Richland County, about an hour’s drive west of Madison, is one of 19 counties in the U.S. that has voted for every winning president since 1980. Democrat Barack Obama won it by 16 points in 2012 and Republican Trump won it by 6 points in 2016.

Kind’s is one of just 31 Democratic seats in the U.S. House whose voters favored Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016. It is the most evenly balanced congressional district in Wisconsin in its partisan makeup, according to the last several years of polling by Marquette Law School: 45% of voters here are Democratic-leaning and 43% are Republican-leaning.

But while Richland County is less partisan in its voting behavior than many other parts of Wisconsin, it is just as divided over Trump as the state as a whole.

“I think the revelations have slowly started to turn the tide, but I think people are pretty dug in yet,” said Dale Schultz, the former Republican state senator from Richland Center who became disenchanted with the GOP before leaving office in 2015.

“My guess is there’s a lot more to come out, (but) people are weary and they really just want (someone) to fix the roads and do something about health care,” Schultz said.

The city’s American Legion post boasts a flag court with more than 300 American flags. When people gathered here recently to take down the flags for winter, voters could be found on both sides of the Trump debate.

Impeachment?

“Oh, I think that should have been done a long time ago,” said Melby, who compared Trump to a schoolyard bully. “I don’t doubt for a minute the man seems to think he is above the law, so therefore if he decided to talk to the Ukraine president and asked him to look into Joe Biden, in Donald Trump’s mind that would be perfectly acceptable.”

Bill Butteris, who was helping take down the flags, called the hearings “half-assed.”

“They just keep asking the same question after question after question. I think it’s a big waste of time. If I was one of those (members of Congress) I wouldn’t even show up,” said Butteris, who said he didn’t think Trump had used foreign aid in ways that other politicians hadn’t.

“You can’t tell me that some of this money that has gone to these other countries for aid hasn’t come back into the pockets of congressmen or whoever,” Butteris said.

“It’s a crock,” he said of the impeachment inquiry, and “it’s dividing the country in half.”

Larry Engel, a liberal pastor at Five Points Lutheran Church, brought up the subject of impeachment at a recent meeting of local clergy.

“It pretty much played itself along party lines,” Engel said. “Everybody in the room was friends. They weren’t afraid to have the conversation, but it was tense. And you could feel it. And the guy that started off, his voice was shaking. His point was this was so devastating on all sides, no matter which way you take it. &mldr; I think on both sides, everybody is pretty disgusted with political life these days.”

A conservative pastor at that meeting, Wayne Fife, said in an interview afterward that he found the impeachment fight more divisive than the Vietnam War.

“You better have some very serious provable issues if you’re going to tear at the fabric of the nation the way this has,” said Fife, who views the House inquiry as unfair and the allegations as insufficient to warrant impeachment.

“The other two impeachment processes, the one with Nixon and the one with Clinton, those were conducted with a lot of, I thought, self-discipline and bipartisan efforts at addressing actual potentially criminal behavior. I have not witnessed that in President Trump’s (impeachment),” Fife said.

Recent polling in Wisconsin suggests Republican voters are a bit more unanimous in their opposition to impeachment than Democrats are in their support for impeachment.

And that was reflected in interviews with anti-Trump voters here. Some said they thought the hearings were bringing out key facts. Some expressed deep admiration for the government officials and civil servants who testified against Trump.

'We're all just burned out'

But some worried about the political fallout of an impeachment process they think is extremely unlikely to end in Trump’s removal.

That could make Democrats look ineffectual, said Taliaferro, who expressed deep weariness over the political wars of the Trump presidency.

“I think we’re all just burned out to the point of almost not caring and almost not caring to the point of it being dangerous. &mldr; It’s like we’ve all been just battered. We’re tired and we don’t want to engage anymore,” she said.

Rudersdorf said he watched the impeachment hearings "because I’m interested in what’s going on. It is our country, as dysfunctional as it is right now.”

But “nothing’s getting done. None of them are doing their jobs. &mldr; They’re not going to kick him out for this. I mean he’s lied how many times? 12,000 times? What’s a couple more lies? They’ve put up with all the lying he’s done so far,” he said.

In the most recent statewide poll by Marquette, support in Wisconsin for impeaching Trump and removing him from office declined slightly from 44% in October to 40% in November, though the survey was taken before the final week of testimony to the House Intelligence Committee.

Those voters who believe Trump asked Ukraine to investigate his political rivals and tried to pressure that country by withholding military aid were more likely to favor impeachment regardless of their party, Marquette pollster Charles Franklin said.

But the partisan divide was deep, with 93% of Republicans opposing impeachment and removal and 78% of Democrats supporting it. The House impeachment inquiry, which now shifts from the Intelligence Committee to the Judiciary Committee, could conclude by the end of the year.

“If the House impeaches, the Senate acquits,” said Engel, the pastor. “Is there a good in that? &mldr; What’s beyond the (political) war?”

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